Prison Management

A good debate on the previous thread about Labour legislating to ban the private sector from prison management.

A lot of people missed the point in arguing about how much better (or not) the private managers of ARCP have been than the public prison service. The issue is that Labour passed a law so that no matter how much better they were, they could not be considered to carry on. I’m happy to have someone impartial judge on results and tender accordingly. Labour however seem to think that unless the staff are members of state unions, they can not be allowed to manage a prison.

The other issue people miss is that all ARCP did was manage the prison to the standards set by the Government. They are, I submit, far more accountable to the Government than its own department is. You can sack a bad private provider, you can not sack your own department.

The issue is even worse when you look at the fact that the department which sets the standards for prisons, is also the same department which runs the prisons. You get a real blurring of accountabilities and focus.